Strategic Creativity

I’m a big believer in intuition in the design process. Listening to that inner voice that guides us in weighing alternatives and making decisions can save us a lot of grief. Malcolm Gladwell’s great book Blink explores the phenomena of rapid cognition (he doesn’t like the word “intuition”) in decision-making, and should be required reading for anybody in a creative field. Seeking out some further insights into creativity, I read an article recently that cited work done by Columbia Business School prof William Duggan which identified three distinct types of intuition — and in the process I realized why I approach design the way I do.

The three types of intuition Duggan identifies are Ordinary, Expert and Strategic. Ordinary intuition is just the general gut instinct, spidey-sense feeling that anybody experiences from time to time. Expert intuition derives from experience, and is what informs quick assessments made by professionals in any field. It’s what allows your doctor to quickly diagnose your ailment with only the briefest of exams. Strategic intuition is different from expert in that while it may be informed by experience, it tends to be a deep insight that connects seemingly unrelated knowledge to create a kind of gestalt idea that is truly unique. Any creative person can recognize that strategic intuition is the one we’d most like to tap into, but it’s probably the hardest one to access reliably. The secret formula? Time.

To access strategic intuition, we must familiarize ourselves with the design challenge at hand, learn the ins and outs, the opportunities and constraints, and then we need to set it aside to let all of that marinate in our minds for a while. It can take a little time, or a lot. Our sub-conscious brains are remarkably adept at doing background processing on problems like these, and then floating interesting solutions to the surface of our consciousness, often at random and inconvenient times. It is an oft-cited design tip to carry a notebook with you at all times and have it sitting on the nightstand when you sleep. Great ideas, often our greatest ideas, frequently seem to come unbidden and when least expected, and if not recorded, tend to disappear like smoke.

The element of reflective time is vitally important to doing our best work, yet so often we find ourselves up against deadlines that just don’t permit it. When placed in the stress of tight timeframes, we tend to start acting reflexively, relying much more on our expert intuition. This is why the creative work that gets done in those situations looks a lot like work we’ve seen before. It feels like a creative block, and it is, it feels lousy and unsatisfying.

The best way out of this predicament is to try to find a way to get a bit of reflective time built into project schedules. Even just a day or two of not trying to bang out ideas that just aren’t ready to come out is tremendously valuable. If you find yourself constantly in the reactive mode, constantly relying on your expert intuition, you’re really selling yourself short as a creative person, and never really allowing yourself to have the deep strategic insights that can take your work to whole new level.

Channel your strategic intuition and be great!